


Flatline

by insertedgynamehere



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Reflection, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Resurrection, Themes of Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 09:11:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7971295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insertedgynamehere/pseuds/insertedgynamehere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angela wields a great power in her ability to resurrect. But what does everyone see in those brief moments of death, in those seconds before Mercy drags them back to the land of the living?</p>
<p>Mercy reflects on her ability to bring those she loves back to life, and whether she has the right to defy any possible god, or gods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flatline

Resurrection was a rather jarring experience to one’s personal beliefs, Angela had concluded. When she had bought Jack back from the brink for the very first time, all those long years ago, she had run him through the now routine questions regarding his physical health. The mental was an entirely different beast all together. Jack had locked himself in his quarters for a week, coming out only to issue commands and get himself something to eat.

Being possibly the first man alive to have taken a bullet to the shoulder, leg and ribs, to die and to come back relatively physically unscathed, it goes without saying that Angela was immensely curious about what he had seen on the ‘other side’. To probe such a question might be deemed insensitive, intrusive even, but her professional examinations demanded that she ask it, for the well being of her patient and for the sake of her curiosity.

When she had asked what he had seen _after_ , when his eyes drifted shut and his gun dropped from his hands, clattering to the hard ground with an almost final _thud_ , she regretted it almost immediately. His voice took on a grave tone in the single word he uttered to her, his eyes distant and almost pained and his hands curling into tight fists as if he was still on the streets of London, enemy fire raining hell down on his solitary position.

“We’re not having this conversation Doctor.”

It was then she fully realised just how... _brutal_ coming back from the dead could be. Maybe Jack had seen the pearly gates, maybe he had seen the fires of hell or maybe he had seen nothing at all, simply gone from existence for a few seconds until she brought him back. To be confronted with a hard, undeniable truth that something did or did not exist, to have your personal religious beliefs shaken up so strongly...

She did not push the subject with him, instead offering silent support during the nights she found him pacing up and down the watch point’s empty, echoing corridors. Sleep did not find its way easily to her, her work catching her firmly in its unrelenting grasp and they found a quiet solace in each other, often times falling asleep on chairs or couches in the team’s lounge. She gave him a place to let his guard down, to relax from the heavy burden of command and to pull him back from that uncertain place the thought of resurrection seemed to draw him towards.

That was in the early days of Overwatch. She had resurrected many more people on the battlefield since then and she tried her best to help them cope with whatever they saw in those brief moments of death. Winston, ever the scientist, gladly answered her reluctant question about what he had seen, seemingly unaffected by his own experiences with the afterlife or lack thereof.

“Nothing.” He had replied, voice steady in acceptance. “Peaceful oblivion. Nothing more, nothing less.”

She knew Winston could easily come to terms with what he had seen; he was a scientist, who put his faith in his facts and numbers instead of omniscient beings, immortal souls watching over the Earth’s cycle.

When Tracer had fallen, she had been bought back almost immediately, her heart not quite finished beating before her eyes had shot open again and she was up and fighting again. Moving at a million miles an hour, Angela was quite confident that Tracer simply didn’t fear death in the same way the others might. Sure, she didn’t _want_ to die, but Angela had a feeling Lena might view her own death as a necessary thing, to keep the good fight going, to keep those around her safe and secure for as long as she possibly could.

It was after the recall that things _really_ got interesting.

Suddenly, she was fighting once more, this time not with the rest of world against a seemingly endless enemy but against the shadows themselves, old allies aiming shotguns at her head as she threw herself backwards behind cover.

And then came Fareeha Amari, a protector of the innocent, punisher of the wicked. If there was a god or some immortal being intervening in the events of the mortal world, then Angela thought that she had been sent down to rain hell on those fighting to hurt the innocent. She was a natural warrior, able to make the unyielding steel of her Raptora suit look weightless as she soared through the air, rockets firing to create carnage amidst their enemies. On the rare occasions when she ran out of said rockets, she retained her deadly efficiency, steel fists driving ruthlessly into the enemy.

( _It probably helped that Angela had a bit of a thing for that tattoo on her face as well_ )

Then, out of nowhere, Angela found herself _not_ wanting to bring Pharah back should she fall in battle. Fareeha was a quiet, reserved person in those initial months of the recall and Angela had no clue how she would take…whatever it was people saw _beyond_. She might take it in stride, accepting it for it was, a simple (albeit, somewhat terrifying) truth in the world. She might do as Jack did, and deal with it in her own private, solitary way.

After seeing the almost distraught look in Jack’s eyes whenever she bought the topic up, she resolved rather quickly not to make the same mistake twice.

( _Angela saw Fareeha’s broken body far too often in her nightmares for her liking, as if reminding her that everyone was vulnerable, none were untouchable. The gods demanded payment for this earth, and their measly mortal lives were the currency in this transaction_ )

One heartwrenching day, those nightmares had come true. She was in the medbay when it happened, prepping to see to the inevitable injuries from the team’s latest mission in King’s Row, when Tracer and Lucio stumbled through the door with a limp Pharah between them, the undersuit she wore whilst piloting the Raptora red with blood. They had placed them on the closest bed possible, Tracer blinking away to get her Cadeceus staff for her whilst Lucio filled her in on the details.

She had sacrificed herself, running headfirst into a collapsing building to extract two children cowering and howling for their mother in the ruins of their home. She had done it as well, ushering the two out to a speedy extraction via Tracer when Reaper had appeared out of seemingly nowhere, pressed his two shotguns up against her back and fired before anyone could react. Angela made a mental note to make life very fucking difficult for that man when this was done with.

It was a very good job Angela was the best at what she did (and that Tracer and Lucio moved as fast and decisively as they had), and mere minutes later the Egyptian was gasping for breath, shooting up in the bed as her eyes flew open, her mind still in battle mode. Lena was most amused when it was her gentle touch to the shoulder that calmed the warrior, grounded her in the moment and drew her back from the gods of death.

Later, Fareeha had _laughed_ , the irony of the Angel of Mercy taking her away from Osiris’ grasp not lost on her as she had warmly hugged the surprised ( _but not unwilling_ ) doctor so tight it felt as if her breath had been knocked out of her lungs by a solid punch after all the others had been checked, bandaged up and given their medical instructions.

“ _Fareeha!_ ” she had squeaked in a most undignified way when the warrior’s arms wrapped themselves around her, a rich laughter filling her ears. All she could think about for a moment was how _nice_ it was to hear her laugh, when she was usually so private and reined in around others. When Fareeha had finally let her go after what seemed a blissful eternity ( _shit, she was head over heels for this woman, fuck, fuck, fuck),_ the doctor had pulled away with her cheeks flaming. The routine questions were asked, the normal physical check ups made ( _even if she did linger a bit longer than necessary on her toned stomach and arms_ ). All in all, Fareeha seemed fine, much like Winston after his first resurrection.

Then again, Jack had seemed fine immediately after his first time back and she was unwilling to take risks so she made damned sure it was understood plainly and clearly Fareeha would not be partaking in any more missions for the remainder of the month. The Egyptian disliked it yes, the thought of inaction riling her up quite significantly ( _but that was a_ fight _, her flushed cheeks and flaming eyes doing_ something _to Angela, even when Fareeha’s ire was directed at her for a day or so_ ), but she had accepted the need for rest grudgingly, citing that if Angela had forced Osiris to hand her back to the land of the living, she had no business arguing with someone who could tell gods who lived and who died.

That one prompted some thought. Did she have the right to bring those who fell in battle back from the icy clutches of a violent, bloody death? Surely, on a timescale of eons and eternities as gods must live, preventing a painful death on the field of battle and giving her patients their full lifespan back mattered little, taking into account how insignificantly _small_ their lives where when put on such a scale? But what if it did matter? What if she was unwittingly taking those who had died away from their gods, denying them entry to a much deserved heaven or paradise not just once, but for the rest of eternity? Did she really have the power and the right to make those kinds of decisions, to dictate the nature of human life itself?

It was, in reflection, a good thing that she had these thoughts. Resurrection was not just a shake up to some others personal beliefs, but hers as well. Thoughts such as this kept her grounded in reality, making sure she did not abuse her power of life and death, letting those who should stay dead be dead. She did not know what Fareeha or Jack had seen when their hearts had stopped beating, the blood in their veins ceasing to flow until she dragged them back into this land of the living. Frankly, that was their business and she would not push them to disclose such personal experiences.

She did wonder however, how she would be judged, _if_ she would be judged. She wondered whether she would float in oblivion or be punished harshly for daring to assume the power of a god to bring those she loved back, whether or not god or the gods would be cruel or kind, forgiving or raging. She wondered whether they would be thankful or not that she kept one of their angels grounded on this earth, or whether they would care at all when taking into consideration the massive, incomprehensible timescale such beings might live on, making their human lives seem compraitively inconsequential and trivial.

She wondered a lot what would happen to her and her loved ones when her heart flatlined.


End file.
